The Baby's Bodyguard. Alice Sharpe

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      This book is dedicated to the memory

      of my mother with eternal gratitude

      for all the years of her love and support.

Chapter One

       Someone was watching her.

      Hannah turned quickly. The three women and one old man behind her in line at the small market either smiled or looked bored. No shifting feet, no averted glances.

      “Miss Marks?” the young clerk said, jerking Hannah’s attention back to him. He nodded at the debit card in her hand. The groceries were neatly tucked into cloth sacks, ready to go.

      “Oh, sorry, Dennis.” She ran the card quickly through the machine, determined to get herself under control. But the sensation persisted all across the parking lot and more than once, she stopped to look around, each time expecting to spot someone studying her. Why had she parked at the back of the lot? Finally she was close enough to push the button on her key chain and pop the trunk.

      The flat tire taking up two-thirds of the space reminded her she needed to swing by the service station and get it fixed. She’d thought working part-time would be a piece of cake, but there were always errands to run, as well. She fit the bags around the tire and slammed the trunk. That left her looking across the top of the car toward one of Allota’s two accessible beaches, this one a narrow span of gray sand leading to the deep blue Pacific Ocean.

      It was a cold sea this far north of San Francisco, barely fifty degrees even in summer. On a late May day, with the sun barely peeking from behind high clouds and the wind blowing, just a few hardy souls braved the elements.

      A car door slammed nearby and Hannah jumped. She knew she wasn’t the only woman in the community to be nervous—there were two unsolved murders of lone women sitting in their cars, both of them parked in their own garages. But she wasn’t a lone woman and she didn’t park in a garage so there went that excuse.

      “Nerves СКАЧАТЬ